Azerbaijan jails members of Iran-hired spy network

The Associated Press

Published Tuesday October 9, 2012 at 7:55 am

A court in Azerbaijan has sentenced 22 people to lengthy jail terms for assisting the Revolutionary Guards in neighboring Iran in alleged terrorist plots against U.S. and Israeli targets in the oil-rich Caspian nation.

The Baku serious crimes court said Tuesday that the defendants were handed jail terms of between 10 and 15 years on charges that also included treason and the unlawful possession of weapons.

The trial was held behind closed doors.

Azerbaijani authorities said the Revolutionary Guards recruited an Azeri citizen Niyazi Kerimov while he was in Iran in 1999 and gave him the job of assembling a group of other Azerbaijanis to act as spies.

Targets for attacks were to include the U.S. and Israeli embassies as well as Western-linked groups and companies.